Journey
by Le Chat Noir
Summary: Cirdan's birthday present - AU, OOC, slight tinges of absurdism; one has been warned. Tells of a journey with no aim and four seekers who undertake it... an underlying revolution.
1. Author's notes

Journey

For Cirdan

- Disclaimer

I own none of the characters and settings mentioned in this story. All of them are the property of JRRTolkien. 

- Notes

This fic is dedicated to Cirdan, the author on ff.net, on the great and yearly occasion of her birthday. Thus, with all my thanks for the kind and caring support she gave me in times of need, bearing in mind the torture I infliged her with my depressed and never-ending rants, I cannot but wish her with all my heart a most wonderful, and magical day. 

In response to her challenge, I chose to adapt to Tolkien's universe the fairytale of _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I would like to warn the -potential- reader that this story is, up to now, the most *bizarre* piece I have ever written. It associates blatant OOCness, with absolute AU, while all the while remaining a rather serious, non-parody fic. This story is to be read in an entirely metaphorical way, and few up to none of the events shown are true to canon. _

Out of my personal reading experience, I view this story as unique. If the idea has already been exploited by someone else, please be kind enough o tell me.

If I get enough reviews that go along the lines of 'U SUK!!!! U OBVIUSLY NO NOTING ABOUT THE SIL!!! GO REED IT BEFORE U WRITE THIS CRAP!!! THOSE CHARS WULD NEVER DO THAT!!!' I'll very kindly do the world a favour and take this story down. 

The canon-lovers are asked not to read, lest they run away and go shoot themselves in the brains.

The OOC-haters are asked not to read, lest they run away and go shoot themselves in the brains.

The Conservative are asked not to read, lest they run away and go shoot themselves in the brains.

The others are welcome to stay. Just don't run away and go shoot yourself in the brains. ^_^ 


	2. Prologue

_'I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew;_

_Of wind I sang, a wind there came, and in the branches blew.'_

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~ _

Journey

For Cirdan

- Prologue

Strange are the ways of Ilùvatar to the minds of the Elves. 

Strange are the ways of his Children, those born of his Music. Strange are the ways of those sprung from the depths of his thoughts, the spirits of Eä, lords and ladies over Arda and all that inhabits it. 

Strange are the ways of his creatures, those that swim and those that crawl, those that run and fly. 

Strangest of all, maybe, are the ways of the ways of the rivers and the streams; strangest of all, the songs of the running water to the ears of the Elves. 

The boy sat by the riverside, letting his left hand dip in the current. He was not really a boy anymore. Perhaps below fifty, or maybe just above. His long blonde hair was tied back into a loose, casual braid, and his sleeve was wet up to the shoulder with the splashes from the swirling water. 

Idly, he picked up a smooth, brown pebble from the riverbed, and turned it around in his palm with nervous fingers, before letting it go again. His wide, grey eyes stayed fixated on the whirling foam of the vivid stream, and were tainted with just enough a faint shade of blue to let one guess that he had been looking at the water too often for its seal not to have been printed deep in his young pupils. 

"Sister?" The small girl that sat some feet away looked up from the crown she wove out of poppies.

The water ran cold between the young man's spread fingers. A slight smile played at his lips. 

"The storm is coming."

"'Storm'? What do you mean?"

The young girl frowned. 

The river flowed. The pale youth shook his head slowly. 

"I do not know."

~ 


	3. I

_'Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,_

_And by the strand of Ilmarïn there grew a golden Tree.'_

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~_

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part one

"My Queen?"

She entered the room cautiously, afraid of something she could not quite place. Even the warm smile she received did not put her at ease. 

Hesitant, her step faltered as she closed the door gently behind her, betraying her to the buzzing presence in the room. 

_Buzzing? Where did that come from? _

The Queen had been described by many words before, but certainly, she thought, it was the first time anyone had applied to her the adjective of 'buzzing'. 

It was surely the way _she felt it, having crossed the threshold, as she was immediately assailed by the troubled __consciousness of a presence, the unavoidable __awareness of the __being that sat in the chair. It was warmth, and it was a golden warmth, a rich, bright, satisfying golden warmth; somehow fulfilling and annihilating all self-conscious desires and notions of __will; insinuating and lovely and surrounding and kind all rolled into one, hazy yet intense and already dying. _

"My Queen."  She repeated, momentarily out of breath for the effort of standing up to the sudden impact of the Lady's spirit. A shock she had almost forgotten, for the spinning of her head and the beating of her heart. One that could, it had been rumoured, make fall to their knees the hardest-hearted of the elves of Beleriand, hunters and assassins, slaves already half-_turned, with the single draft of a smile. _

And she who had never before wavered under the gentle gaze… 

"Yes. What do you want, child?" Child. And she had never called her anything but _child, however offended the young girl she was had been by the appellation. _

But every passing second seemed to drain her of her strength, and, at last realising that she would be able to stand no longer on her weakening knees, in four steps she was standing in front of the radiant lady, and stooping to the ground, rested her forehead in the Queen's palms in a gesture of submission. 

"Your benediction."

Then a gentle shiver –oh! almost imperceptible- shook the pair of white hands she held, and the charm broke over the place and turned the molten gold into bare air then into silence. She felt then that the woman whose hands she held at that moment was no more than that, a woman; but she did not dare look up. 

"Yet the lands outside are dangerous, and once you have set a foot outside the Girdle my power will be able to give you aid no more." 

Cautiously, she raised her eyes. The smile from the divine face was gone, leaving only a pair of deep, grey eyes, unreadable for too heavily burdened by numerous ages of joys and grieves. 

"Only your benediction."

And it is said that Time is a factor perceived differently by immortal souls as by mortal ones. A millennia to the Firstborn children can be as elusive as a fleeting season, while for the Firimar it means a hundred deaths and more. Understanding of Time can also be a very personal matter. Sometimes a decade can pass like a single second, and sometimes like an eternity. 

Sometimes. 

It probably did not, she assumed, account for the century that lapsed away before at last the Queen eased down and placed a light kiss between her brows. 

~ 

She knew that, after the Nirnaeth, the lands outside were strewn with Orcs, more dangerous than they had ever been before. Hardly had one left the relative security of Doriath for half a day that one could still hope to be alive. Companies went forth, with the swiftest horses and the surest swords, hunters went forth, the best archers of the land, lone seekers and madmen went forth one day or another, and few ever  returned. Few up to one, or two, and one up to none. 

None returned and none left. The people of Menegroth lived enclosed, voluntary prisoners behind the secure magic of their Queen. There was no law, no _real law; but unspoken as it was, it was known among the denizens better than any decree of the King, and feared with a dread they could not name. _

Then Tumhalad had past, so of the mighty elven kingdoms of the Age, remained only the Girdle of Melian, and a faint rumour of a City in the South, a name, a shadow: Turgon, the Hidden King, who dwelt somewhere still with a people and a host. 

Yet for now, no one, it was felt, could be trusted to be let out in the wild, in the mere outskirts of the kingdom, one day's travels from the heart of the City. Those who returned, were shunned, would it be only because they never should have, and distrusted ever then; those who did not were mourned, and promptly forgotten by those who wished to. Even within the woven walls of the Girdle, there was no faith among the people, and under her wary eyes the shadows lengthened fey.

She left alone, before the dawn, with only her horse, her sword, and enough lembas to survive for a month. 

~ 


	4. II

_'Beneath the stars of Ever-eve, in Eldamar it shone,_

_In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.'___

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~_

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part two

There was no straight road leading where she wished to go. Indeed, after a while, she began to wonder if she only knew where she wished to go. Unsure, doubting herself, she wandered to and fro, for two days, after which, eventually making a decision, she whispered her wish in her horse's right ear. The next hour or so, she had crossed the Esgalduin, and was riding at a fast pace along the borders of Neldoreth. 

It was madness, she knew. If Tol-in-Gauroth had once been the bright and proud Tol Sirion, fort of dear Inlgorion and the children of Finarfin; it had long ago fallen into the hands of Sauron, Morgoth's first captain. For long and dreary years, the tower had been turned, darkness in its most sombre form dwelling in its secret depths; depths made for light, made for beauty and hope. No one passed by the small isle on the river with a chance of ever actually passing; no one engaged in the Pass of Sirion with a sane mind and still some cutting shards of hope stuck in their skull. Yet Tol-In-Gauroth had fallen, it had been said. A whirlwind of insane words had swept by the stone-old stillness of Menegroth; two fleeting silhouettes of white and black had come, come but never stayed, leaving behind them unbelieving bewilderment, yet a new but bitter spring. 

There was a white stone there, they said, standing on a green grave; but around it nothing else to mark the place where stayed the tower of Finrod. 

It took her three days of journeying to arrive at the Pass of Sirion; yet during the trip she met with no Orcs nor any creature of the darkness. Rustles in the leaves of the forest around, unrest in the powerful current of Sirion; unknown beasts or birds stealing away in the grass or springing from the bushes; nothing else. 

And at first she looked over the great plains with despair. One white tower stood there, far away; seeming so far away she immediately felt she could never reach it by any power under her command. Yet it was not the tower of Minas Tirith. Another white tower erected out of nothing, foolish hopes, blind and deaf; its high windows of stained glass shone at a distance, blinding the eye from afar. But of the tower of Guard no trace was left, and she saw no green grave standing out against the endless plains of dancing grass. 

Desperation seized her heart. Slowly, she slid down from her saddle, and began to lead her horse into the great plain; the tall, dry grass reached up to her shoulders. 

It was early morning when she started, yet when at last she reached the base of the high tower the sun was already setting; and she stood under the long shadow of the building of alabaster and tilted her head back to embrace its full height. The gate to the inside of the tower was made of steel, sound, valiant steel; but the hinges were rusted and it had been thrown wide open, as if someone who had taken the trouble to erect such an stronghold could have left the doors gaping in such a way. 

The hollow it left in the walls seemed only too inviting. She left her horse outside in the night and began to slowly climb the rotating staircase that led to the top of the tower. There were many doors along the upgoing way, but all of them were locked; hard as she tried, the silver keys stayed firmly put in the keyholes and refused to budge. She went on, and was stopped in her climbing only when she reached the top-floor; for the staircase ended there and she could climb no further. 

There was someone sitting by the window. It was only a small window compared to the other monstrously high ones; yet it was the only one in the room. It was dirty, and very dirty at that; one could hardly see through the glass. The room itself was smaller than what it seemed like from the outside, and the apparent luxury of the stained-glass she had seen was almost sadly denied by the bareness of that one small room: there was only one chair, that which the other elf sat on. It was an old chair, too, very worn out; and a bit of the backrest had broken off, lying unheeded on the ground. 

At first, the motionless silhouette by the window did not seem to acknowledge her existence, and she could only see the rich mass of shoulder-length black curls which fell on its back. She coughed lightly so as to make her presence known. 

Slowly, not the least startled, the sitting elf turned around, and she recognized him at last. The face she had to present at that moment had to be an uncommonly hilarious sight, she deemed; for upon seeing her, his mouth curled into a smile, and soon, as sheer weight of bewilderment and disbelief forbade her to utter a single sound, a joyous laugh emerged from his throat. 

"Hail then, my cousin. What brings you here alone, so far from your dwellings and those of your lord?"

She blinked. Silence took over the small room, and when one full minute did not seem to alter the incomprehensive nature of her stare his smile gradually faded into a guilty look. 

"I'm sorry." He stood, and bowed slightly. He had always been tall, she remembered. Taller still he seemed now, though there was no specific reason for it to be. 

"Why are you here?" She demanded to know. "Rumour says you are in the South."

The dark-haired elf looked up, arching a thin eyebrow. 

"Is it so? I did not know." he mused. "I wonder who thought about this one first. I have always been here."

She snapped her mouth shut the moment she realized it had been hanging open. For the second time in her life, words failed her. There were too many questions to ask, and none of them seemed at first sight to be less ridiculous than the others. 

"And why are you not in your City?"

It was Turgon's turn to look upon her in puzzlement. 

"City? What do you speak of? I have no city; only this tower."

She laughed.

"You know what I'm speak of. You were there at the Nirnaeth. You brought your people out. Don't tell me you don't remember. At the beginning you took a third of your father's host and went to hide yourself away in some unknown place and no one ever knew how to reach you in times of peace or war."

After that, there was only silence, as they stared at each other both lacking understanding. Then he shook his head, and spoke again.

"And why are you here?"

"I visit my brother."

Under his blank stare, she wondered if he had not gone mad a little bit after all. No, she berated herself. We cannot allow ourselves to become mad. We cannot, and he must know that. Therefore he could not have allowed himself to become mad. 

"You will not find him here." he said. "For Finrod walks beneath the trees in Eldamar and comes no more to the grey world of tears and war." And from the absent look on his face she devised he had most probably learnt this sentence by heart from one book or another. 

"You have not seen him either, I believe?"

He sighed, and turned to the window again.

"He is there, isn't he? He is right there. Nothing between us; only mountains and rivers. And yet I have not gone. I have sat by this window for days and days and I have not gone; for I cannot leave my place at this window. It would be too hard on me."

"Come with me then."

He shuddered. 

"Come with me, and I will lead you to him." Turgon kept intent on staring at the dirty window. Suddenly, she felt ashamed of holding out her hand to someone who obviously did not care, who did not see; yet she did not take it back. "Stop staring at the window. It is so soiled you can hardly see a thing anyways."

Three seconds passed like five eternities, then he suddenly spun round to face her.

"I can't. I can't leave her. Do you not understand?"

~ 

The yellow grass stretched into a distance further than what her eyes could see. 

"You were right. He was not there."

"I knew it." He looked away from her eyes. "But don't worry. We will be going to him soon. To him, and to all the others."

She shrugged, and turned to glare at the landscape instead. 

"And may I ask what made you realize so suddenly that your legs had in fact not become roots that dug into the marble?"

"Pardon me?"

"I asked you if I was entitled to know why you so suddenly decided that you could move again?"

He looked at her in utter confusion. A sigh of exasperation escaped her lips.

"I could almost believe you were sincere." She sneered. "Too bad your memory's so short."

Then she dug her heels deep into the flanks of her horse and darted across the plain in a wild gallop, not waiting to look back.

~ 

"Where are we headed to?" His voice drifted, lost amidst the roar of the wind and the beating of her frantic pulse. 

She did not know.

"To the Sea!" she cried. "South along the river and then to the Sea!"

~ 


	5. III

_'There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,_

_While here, beyond the __Sundering__Seas__, now fall the Elven-tears.'___

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~_

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part three

The dark-eyed elf glared at them.

"Why are you staring at me while I bathe?"

Turgon coughed delicately. 

"Why are you bathing with your clothes on?"

The other elf seemed to meditate the question for some time. His left hand played with a pebble, turning it over and over in his palm; somehow, though she did not know why, the repeated gesture made her uneasy, and she would rather have been elsewhere.

The elf looked up.

"I don't know. I guess you have a point here." He paused for a second, and let go of the pebble; the small rock was carried away by the current and was soon lost to her sight. "Does this give you an excuse to stare?"

Turgon shook his head. 

"No."

With a grin, the other elf stepped out of the stream. Droplets of water fell everywhere about him as if he was a dark cloud filled with rain. It looked like he was clothed in black, but, she thought, maybe it was only because of the overly high rate of dampness of his garments' fabric. 

"Well. I guess I'll just have to wait until my clothes dry, then." He looked skywards. "The weather is fair."

Then he began walking away.

Silently, Turgon took the sack with the lembas and handed one to her, before taking one for himself. They sat down on the grass and he took a small bite of his slice. She stared at hers. 

"Makalaurë!"

Turgon's voice sounded hesitant, and she startled at the name, though the call did not address her. Far away already, she saw the black silhouette stop.

Turgon waved his hand at him.

"Why don't you come and share this meal with us?"

Maglor tilted his head sideways.

"I never eat."

She smiled at him. 

"It doesn't matter. Join us for once. It's been far too long since we've been together."

Warily, he walked towards them again, and stood behind Turgon. The latter shuffled for some moments in the tattered leather bag, then shook his head.

"There's no more. Here." 

He broke off a piece of his own and handed it to the other elf. 

"How can there be no more?" she wondered aloud. "There still was aplenty yesterday."

Turgon shook his head again.

"I don't know."

Maglor was turning his bread around in his hands, as if wondering what to do with it. 

"You eat it," she offered. "You put it in your mouth and you eat it."

He tried, and swallowed the small mouthful only after having carefully chewed it.

"It tastes good," he said. "I did not remember it tasted like that."

Then he sat down with them.

"What is a son of Fëanor doing in these parts of Doriath?" Turgon demanded after a while. "Didn't the Girdle keep you off?"

Maglor looked up from examining his lembas.

"Am I in Doriath?"

"Yes." she said. "We are very near to Menegroth now. It's a wonder the guards haven't caught us already." 

"But what about you?" Maglor asked Turgon. "Shouldn't the Girdle be closed also to you?"

There was a short silence.

"I don't know," the taller elf confessed. "I hadn't thought about that." He had finished eating and stood up to wash his hands in the river.

"I don't think the Girdle is enough to keep us out." Maglor said after his half-cousin came back. "We can always unwittingly go anywhere we did not wish to go."

She had also finished eating, but politely waited until Maglor had finished too. His clothes had dried noticeably fast, she mused. Maybe a kind of magic.

There was a minute during which they all stared at the ground, uneasy about standing up and parting once more. 

"We are headed to the South." she said finally, looking the older elf in the eye with a faint air of defiance. "South along the river, all the way to the Sea. Where do you seek to go?"

"Nowhere." he admitted, looking surprised at such a question. 

Turgon laughed.

"Then our paths are but one and the same!"

Maglor smiled. 

"If you say so."

He stood, and whistled, a shrill, high-pitched note; and something in the surrounding woods shook with a kind of fear. 

Out of nowhere, seemingly, a tall grey steed stepped out, and went towards them. Still smiling, Maglor bent over its mane, and petted its robe; into its twitching ear he whispered some words that she did not hear.

~

Turgon pushed his horse into a trot, and came just beside Maglor.

"I've always wondered" he said casually "who you really were."

"Maglor son of Fëanor." The answer came just as heedless.

"No, I did not ask you what your name was, but who you were."

Maglor raised a slender eyebrow and glanced at the other elf as if he were mildly mad.

"Where do you see the difference?"

The question seemed to shock the other, yet after five minutes of silence during which Maglor clearly thought that the conversation had come to an end, Turgon shrugged.

"Reckon there's none."

Maglor turned to him again.

"Pardon me? I have forgotten what we were talking about" He said with an apologetic smile.

Turgon stared off into the distance.

"I have also," he admitted.

Then they rode in silence.

~


	6. IV

_'Oh Lorien!__ The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;_

_The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.'_

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~_

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part four

 "Did you see my harp?"

Maglor looked around the small clearing they had stopped in. In fact, she had noticed, his clothes were of a dark burgundy. At the moment, he was wrapped in a heavy leather cloak, as they all were; the weather was starting to get chilly. 

"It's over there."

Turgon pointed to a spot some feet away. There was no knowing how the instrument had got there in the first place, but it just had, and Maglor seemed relieved as he picked it up.

"Thank you." he said softly, while brushing nimble fingers on the wooden frame. 

She tried a smile.

"Will you not play for us?"

Maglor shook his head.

"I can't. It's broken. See?"

Turgon walked up to him, and took the harp in his hands.

"I do not see."

"No, you wouldn't. But it is broken. Right here."

The older elf bent over Turgon's shoulder and pointed to one of the cords; which seemed to the two others just about as perfect as it could be. 

"Hear." He ran a sorry hand over the strings, producing a series of sounds which seemed to her the most beautiful she had heard in a very long time. "It doesn't sound right."

There was a minute of silence, during which all three listened to the inconsequent chirp of a bird nearby.

"How sweet is the song!" she exclaimed, suddenly delighted for a reason she could not place.

"Very sweet." Maglor agreed, with a tiny smile.

Turgon handed the harp back to its owner.

"Why is it broken?"

"Oh, I don't know." Maglor shook his head, and observed his instrument just as a puzzled child would a book. "I have been wanting to understand for a while, but I don't know yet. It just is. Do you know?"

The tall elf shook his head.

"I don't. But why don't you get another?"

Maglor trailed a finger down a fine carved line on the frame. The wood was so worn that it was impossible to see what the artist had meant to represent anymore.

"Oh, I could." he said softly. "Easy job. But this one's a gift from my father. I would want to see it repaired anyways."

"Oh." Turgon shot him a shy smile. "You can have mine for the length of the trip if you wish. It's not like I'm going to use it. It's not like I can use it like you do." 

Maglor looked up, surprised. She did not see what passed between them at that moment, but suddenly both their faces broke into mirrored grins, and joyful, almost naïve laughter burst from their lips as Turgon handed his silver harp to the shorter elf.

"Well, thank you. If that isn't kind of you." A wistful smile lingered on his lips while he ran a hand across the strings; a smile denied only by a strange light in his eyes. "But it seems that I have misplaced my gift along with this wretched instrument. I guess I will find it again also when it is repaired. Do you know of a good craftsman who could do that?"

Turgon looked up skywards.

"I am sorry. I do not doubt that there are some under my rule that should be fit for the job. My nephew himself is greatly talented with his hands. But I fear that they are far."

A shudder ran through his spine. He was not very sure indeed where exactly they were. Maglor looked away from him.

"Understand that I do not wish to entrust this task to anyone."

Turgon sighed. 

"I understand."

A short silence passed. 

"But I will try to play for you."

With a smile, Maglor swept down to seat cross-legged on the riverbank, and shut his eyes; and to the sound of his singing the river itself ran in silence not to mar the music's flow.

~ 

The falsely warm voice made her flinch.

"Hail, brother."

"Hail indeed. One good day, isn't it?"

"A very good day."

The brown-headed elf lowered his bow, and smiled.

"What do you think?" He threw the wooden weapon towards Maglor. "I carved it myself this fall, with only my dagger. I have already shot several deer with it, and one great bird; but I did not know what kind of bird it was."

Maglor fiddled with the bow several minutes. 

"I think the arc is too cambered."

The younger elf laughed aloud, and his eyes shone with a new gleam.

"Yet you know that I have always liked them better that way!" He extended a hand, demanding the weapon back. Maglor handed it to him very carefully, and looked away as he addressed him.

"Are times good, Pityo?" (1)

The other elf kept on smiling. 

"I am not Pityo."

"Ambarussa." (2) The word was pronounced so stern and low that she afterwards wondered if she had truly heard it or not.

Amros laughed again, a fierce laugh she thought she remembered having already heard somewhere before; and looked up frankly to stare Turgon, then herself in the eye. 

"Very good, brother. Very good. Best winter I've had in years." 

And then, in the blink of an eye, he loosed an arrow skywards. 

"I've been shooting clouds and stars! The sun itself is down."

For a second, her heart stopped beating, and after a silence Turgon turned to her with a sorry look.

"It is night. We shall have to rest." 

~ 

1 – Pityo: short for Pityafinwë, Amros' Quenya father-name.

2 – Ambarussa: Amros and Amras' mother-name. According to Cirdan –thanks for the idea, Cirdan! After all, this is your fic.- the twins were both indifferently called Ambarussa, together as well as each of them. 


	7. V

_'Oh Lorien!__ Too long have I dwelt upon this Hither shore_

_And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.'_

- _The Lord of the Rings_

_JRR Tolkien_

_~_

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part five

Silence was beginning to feel oppressive. 

"We had never been attacked before." She absently picked up the cloth Turgon was handing her, wiping the dark blood off her sword. "I don't understand why it had to happen now." Her words rang hopelessly empty to her own ears. "We are already this far South." 

"Things happen." Maglor's voice sounded distant, even though he was only standing some feet away. 

The blood stuck to her hands. It was an unpleasant feeling. It felt like she would never be able to wash it off, ever again. 

"It is like that." Turgon, she realized, was trying to sound comforting. "'Tis what is called 'the aftermath'. It is bound to be foul." 

"Twenty-one." Amros said. 

"What?"

"Twenty-one," he repeated. "There was twenty-one of them. We killed them all.  Us four. Not one of them escaped."

"Stop it." Maglor walked past his brother without even granting him a glance. Some dry branches cracked under his feet. 

"Your steps should be silent." Amros carefully sheathed his sword. "You're an elf. You're wearing boots, but branches should not crack when you step on them."

~ 

He dug his knife into the animal's flesh, not deep enough to kill instantly, yet wounding in a way that left no chance. 

He crouched, and laid the dagger on the ground. For a moment, as the animal shook on the ground with the fierce convulsions of agony, he took the time to immobilize its head with one hand, and stared into its large, pitch-black eyes. 

He tilted his head to the right. It was not the first time he had done this, and it was not the first time he had found nothing in the prey's one-dimensional eyes. 

Sighing, he picked up the steel blade, and sliced the slender throat, trying to soothe the violent spasms by running a gentle hand down its robe. Still warm, he thought as he stood up. 

~ 

"Dinner is dead."

He threw the corpse down in front of the fire, then let himself fall onto the ground. 

After a while, the world blacked out.

~

"Should we wake him?"

She shifted her glance from the sleeping form of Amros to the piece of meat she held, then to Maglor; who, she decided, would have authority in the matter. 

The latter, she found, was already sitting at his brother's side, and tenderly spread his own cloak on the younger elf's body. 

"He sleeps with his eyes closed." A strange smile lingered on his lips. "Like a small child would. A child in a safe room, with a safe roof over his head. Would you believe he were older than you both?"

"Not by very much," Turgon said.

Maglor ignored him. 

"He slept like that, too, when he was young." He passed loving fingers in his brother's hair. "He would fall asleep like that with the sound of rows and fights down the stairs. Or the silence. Telvo would cry when there were fights, but he had feared the silence most."

He looked up, and his hand sprang back from his brother's head onto his lap, as if in guilt. 

"With his eyes closed," he mouthed. 

"Here." Turgon handed him a piece of meat. He took it thoughtlessly, and stood.

She almost started when her cousin spoke. 

"It is his kill after all."

She took a hungry bite of her share. Lembas was good, but one got tired of it after a while. 

"I guess."

Maglor kept still. 

"Don't. If he can sleep, let him."

Then, he edged away from the sleeper, sat down, and began to eat. She thought she heard him mutter something under his breath, but did not dare ask. 

~ 

The fire was dying. It was Turgon's turn to keep watch, but Maglor, being restless, kept him company. 

"But," he stirred the burning embers. "he was not there. He had departed. I knew he would."

"Findo (1)?" Maglor took up his flask and began twisting its cap open.

Turgon nodded, and brought his knees close to his chest. A small smile appeared at the corners of his cousin's lips.

"You think Findo would have departed?" 

"Of course he would!" Turgon made and angry gesture. "Ingoldo (2)… He was the only one of us worthy of it."

Maglor brought the flask to his lips. 

"In fact, I think he was there." He took a long sip of his drink. "I think he was."

~ 

The Sea lay before them, grey and moody and unmoved. She stared at its flatness, and felt the need to cry.

"So this is the end?"

Turgon nodded. The wind took a malignant pleasure in blowing his hair in his face. 

"This is the end. We can go no further."

Maglor, who had wandered off somewhere down the coast, came back to stand beside them. 

"What will we do now?"

The taller elf shifted his weight from one foot to another. 

"I do not know." Uneasy, he paused. "Hope."

Amros did not even blink. "There is no more hope. Only blood and tears."

Then, faster than what the two others could see, Maglor was on him, had grabbed the front of his collar and was yelling into his face. 

"Shut it, will you!"

"What now?" She shuddered at seeing the two brothers so close to each other. We have to pull them away, she thought. One of them will end up dead. "Are you afraid of the truth, Brother?"

"It is not truth! Hope might be foolish and useless, but it is here."

"Then it is my truth." Amros whispered, staring straight into his brother's eyes. Maglor let go of his collar, yet she did not breathe again. "My very own."

The older elf emitted a sound that would have resembled a chuckle were it not for the look on his face.

"No." He slowly shook his head. "No, it is not."

~ 

1 – Findo: short for Findaràto, Finrod's Quenya father-name.

2 – Ingoldo: the Wise. Finrod's –I think– mother-name. 


End file.
